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February 14
I had spent a lot of time thinking about today, about what I could possibly do that might be special enough to consider it something different from a regular day out with Eddie. It had kept me up for a few nights one week, worrying whatever I did wouldn't be good enough, but in the end I had decided that something Nina told me a long time ago was right. It didn't matter if it was something special in terms of what other people wanted or expected, it only mattered if it was something the two of us enjoyed. As long as we had a good time, it didn't matter what anyone else thought.
I had struggled more over the gift than anything else. Everyone had ideas they were willing to give me and while some were better than others -- I was not giving him a personalized fanny pack, like Richie suggested -- none of them felt quite right. I didn't want to give Eddie flowers, and those stuffed bears holding hearts, while cute, were not quite personal enough for me.
A very nice woman at the flower shop had found me staring at roses and gently asked if they were what I really wanted. When I ended up confessing nearly my entire life story to her, she had smiled and taken me over to a corner where I had been able to build my own gift for Eddie. And now, sitting on my bed at the Home, I was holding a small cactus in a dark stone pot, studying it and trying to decide if it was the right gift. It was the one I had now anyway and I thought it was pretty. The leaves -- were they leaves? -- were a dark green and at the top of one were three tiny, dark pink flowers. Inside the pot was a special kind of soil, but then on top of the soil I had placed rocks collected from the amusement park, the first place we had gone together.
Suddenly I was worried it was a weird gift, but there was no going back now. Not with Eddie coming down the hall toward me.
I had struggled more over the gift than anything else. Everyone had ideas they were willing to give me and while some were better than others -- I was not giving him a personalized fanny pack, like Richie suggested -- none of them felt quite right. I didn't want to give Eddie flowers, and those stuffed bears holding hearts, while cute, were not quite personal enough for me.
A very nice woman at the flower shop had found me staring at roses and gently asked if they were what I really wanted. When I ended up confessing nearly my entire life story to her, she had smiled and taken me over to a corner where I had been able to build my own gift for Eddie. And now, sitting on my bed at the Home, I was holding a small cactus in a dark stone pot, studying it and trying to decide if it was the right gift. It was the one I had now anyway and I thought it was pretty. The leaves -- were they leaves? -- were a dark green and at the top of one were three tiny, dark pink flowers. Inside the pot was a special kind of soil, but then on top of the soil I had placed rocks collected from the amusement park, the first place we had gone together.
Suddenly I was worried it was a weird gift, but there was no going back now. Not with Eddie coming down the hall toward me.
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His meds, it turned out, didn't solve everything. Yeah, they weren't evil, despite a few weird days of getting used to them, and they didn't turn him into a creepy, emotionless zombie. After a couple of weeks, he actually did feel like he could breathe a little easier, and his doctor seemed really pleased. Unfortunately, he could still panic like a complete asshole about the stupidest things.
Like Valentine's Day. Leading up to it, he assumed it wouldn't be a big deal. Neither of there were girls, so he thought neither of them would care about the hearts and flowers shit, but the closer the holiday loomed, the clearer it became to him that they would have to actually do something. They'd be expected to. They'd have to exchange gifts.
The last Valentine's gift he'd gotten was a box of those shitty candy hearts and a handful of hastily scrawled cards back in elementary school. In middle school, everybody didn't stick valentines into the desks of every single kid in their class. People sneaked things into the lockers of the kids they liked, and nobody had ever done that for Eddie. So, this was completely new territory.
The day before, he walked into a card shop, practically vibrating with nerves. The clerk simpered over him, cooing about his little girlfriend, and he nearly fucking lost it. "I just want to look on my own," he finally snapped, then reached out and grabbed the first stuffed animal within reach.
It was a lion, with a red, heart-shaped mane, and it was stupid, but he just needed to get out of there before he completely lost his shit. Throwing a wad of cash onto the counter, he hurried out before his receipt finished printing, clutching his bag in his hands and nearly forgetting to take his bike.
Now, he marched down the hall with as much dignity as he could muster, the lion hidden behind his back.
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But maybe he would like it. I hoped he would like it.
"Hi," I said, grinning at him and trying to remember I was only nervous because I liked Eddie so much. I was nervous and wanted to get this right because he meant a lot to me and I knew people would tell me it was still a young relationship and that we were still young, but that stuff didn't matter. He meant a lot to me and I cared about him so much and that was why I wanted him to like what I had bought for him.
"Um... I got you this," I said, standing and holding the cactus toward him. "The woman at the flower shop helped me with it, because I kept looking at the flowers and that didn't feel right, so she said a cactus sometimes makes a better gift, because it won't die like flowers will. So you get to keep it."
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Not because it was strange. It was, and kind of funny looking, and what was he supposed to do with a plant, anyway? But despite its strangeness, or maybe because of it, Eddie found that he liked it immediately. His face flushed, and he wished he could just pretend that he'd forgotten to get Jamie a present all together, but instead, he thrust the stuffed lion in Jamie's face, taking the cactus pot in his other hand, careful of its pointed barbs.
"I... I don't know, I thought... It was all teddy bears and chocolate and pink, and I just... I liked him," he admitted, realizing it was true. It was stupid and childish, a stuffed lion with a heart-shape mane, but it had a friendly face and big, overstuffed paws.
Holding the pot up and peering down at the little flowers, he asked, "Do I water it?"
He'd never had a plant before. What if he killed it? What if one of the other kids in their room broke the pot? What if it got stolen?
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"I love him," I said, pressing the lion into my chest. I didn't care if any of the other boys teased me, the lion was going right on my pillow and he was going to stay in my bed the entire night. If I couldn't sleep with Eddie like we had in the closet on New Year's Eve, this would be the next best thing.
"You only have to water it once a week," I told him, flushed and flustered and pleased. "There are drainage holes at the bottom and the water will leak out into the plate and then get sucked back up. The, um... the rocks on top of the soil are from the amusement park. From the first time we spent the day together."
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At the mention of the rocks, Eddie frowned down into the pot in his hand, prodding carefully at one of them. It seemed silly, they were just rocks, and it had just been a fun day out on their bikes, but something about it made his stomach swoop. Jamie not only remembered that day, and remembered it as something special and significant, but he'd also taken the time to go back there later to collect the little pebbles.
It was weird and really, really sweet. Like, romantic sweet. Like the kind of things people did for each other in the movies.
Eddie's face felt hot.
"Oh," he said dumbly.
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"Is it stupid?" I asked. I knew Eddie would never say it was, even if he didn't like it, but I thought I would be able to tell if he was lying or not. I felt as if we knew each other very well by now, certainly I knew him better than I knew anyone else in Darrow, and while I knew he wouldn't want to hurt my feelings, I did want to know whether or not he liked the gift.
"I thought you could put it by the window," I said and for a moment I was worried I might start to ramble. Eddie was still the only person who could make that happen. "Hopefully no one else tries to touch it."
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"I like it. A lot. It's way better than a stupid stuffed lion. I... kind of panicked," he admitted with a grimace, splotches of color raising on his cheeks. "I wanted to get you something special, but everything at the store seemed like it was meant for girls."
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And the lion would remind me of that. When I was with Eddie, I felt like I could do new things. I felt like I didn't have to resort to all the tricks I had learned from Peter, I could be something else, something more, and it took courage to do that. But Eddie always made it seem easy.
I stepped closer, grinning helplessly, then lifted my hands to either side of Eddie's face so I could kiss him in thanks.
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"I'm glad you don't hate it. I've only given people like, candy and cards and stuff, and that was when we pretty much gave something to everybody in class."
When he started middle school, and they would sell different colored roses in the cafeteria for you to give to your girlfriends and secret crushes, Eddie had pretty much stopped participating in the holiday all together.
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"Come on," I said, dropping my hands. "Let's put the cactus down and go out. I thought we could go bowling. I've never been before and these girls at school were talking about it and said it was fun."
And it seemed fun. I liked the prospect of throwing a heavy ball at things.